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Governments around the world have been hurrying to contain the spread of a new swine flu virus after outbreaks were reported in Mexico, the US and Canada.

At least 100 people are now suspected to have died of the disease in Mexico.

The UN has warned the disease has the potential to become a pandemic, but said the world is better prepared than ever to deal with the threat.

Stocks of anti-viral medicines are being readied and travellers are being screened at some airports for symptoms.

Mexican Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova said suspected swine flu cases in his country had risen to 1,614 including 103 deaths.

Of those, 20 deaths are confirmed to have been caused by the new virus and tests are being investigated.

The US, where 20 people are confirmed to have caught the virus, has declared a public health emergency.

There are also confirmed cases in Canada, and investigations are being carried out on suspected cases in Spain, Israel and New Zealand.

In most cases outside Mexico, people have been only mildly ill and have made a full recovery.

Vigilance urged

The World Health Organization (WHO), the UN's health agency, has said the swine flu virus could be capable of mutating into a more dangerous strain.

The BBC talks to people in Mexico City about the flu outbreak.

In pictures

But officials say they need more information on the virus before deciding whether to raise the global pandemic alert phase.

The WHO is advising all countries to be vigilant for seasonally unusual flu or pneumonia-like symptoms among their populations - particularly among young healthy adults, a characteristic of past pandemics.

Only a handful of the Mexican cases have so far been laboratory-confirmed as swine flu, while in the US confirmed cases had only mild symptoms.

Health experts want to know why some people become so seriously ill, while others just develop a cold, the BBC's Imogen Foulkes reports from Switzerland.

Dr Keiji Fukuda, WHO's assistant director-general in charge of health security, said all countries were "looking at the situation seriously" but that a true picture of the extent of the virus was still emerging.

FLU PANDEMICS

1918: The Spanish flu pandemic remains the most devastating outbreak of modern times - infecting up to 40% of the world's population and killing more than 50m people, with young adults particularly badly affected

1957: Asian flu killed two million people. Caused by a human form of the virus, H2N2, combining with a mutated strain found in wild ducks. The elderly were particularly vulnerable

1968: An outbreak first detected in Hong Kong, and caused by a strain known as H3N2, killed up to one million people globally, with those over 65 most likely to die

H1N1 is the same strain that causes seasonal flu outbreaks in humans but the newly detected version contains genetic material from versions of flu which usually affect pigs and birds.

It is spread mainly through coughs and sneezes.

Officials said most of those killed so far in Mexico were young adults - rather than more vulnerable children and the elderly.

There is currently no vaccine for the new strain of flu but severe cases can be treated with antiviral medication.

Dr Fukuda said years of preparing for bird flu had boosted world stocks of antivirals.

It is unclear how effective currently available flu vaccines would be at offering protection against the new strain, as it is genetically distinct from other flu strains.

WHO experts will meet again in Geneva on Tuesday to discuss whether to raise the pandemic alert phase.

Widespread cases

In the US, eight cases have been confirmed among New York students, seven in California, two in Texas, two in Kansas and one in Ohio.

SWINE FLU

Swine flu is a respiratory disease found in pigs

Human cases usually occur in those who have contact with pigs

Human-to-human transmission is rare and such cases are closely monitored

'I couldn't get out of bed'

Keeping a distance in Mexico City

Q&A: Swine flu

Expect swine flu cases, UK told

"I do fear that we will have deaths," Dr Anne Schuchat of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) told reporters.

The Canadian cases were recorded at opposite ends of the country: two in British Columbia in the west, and four in the Atlantic province of Nova Scotia.

Several countries in Asia and Latin America have begun screening airport passengers for symptoms.

Suspected cases have been detected beyond Mexico, the US and Canada:

* In New Zealand, two school groups that recently visited Mexico have reported illnesses - ten students from one school tested positive for Influenza A, making it "likely" they are infected with swine flu, and three in the other school were being tested

* France and Spain have both reported cases of people becoming ill after returning from Mexico and are carrying out tests

* In Israel, medics are testing a 26-year-old man who has been taken to hospital with flu-like symptoms after returning from a trip to Mexico

* Two people in Queensland, Australia, are being tested after developing flu-like symptoms on returning from Mexico

* The Brazilian authorities say one man was taken into hospital as a precaution after he became ill following a visit to Mexico

Economic worries

The BBC's Ros Atkins dons his face mask to explore Mexico City

With Mexico City apparently the centre of infection, many people are choosing to leave the city, the BBC's Stephen Gibbs reports.

Schools, universities and even most bars and restaurants will remain closed for several days and though Sunday church services went ahead, priests were asked to place Communion wafers in people's hands rather than on their tongues.

Some people are beginning to worry about the effects swine flu is having on their livelihoods and the Mexican economy in general, our correspondent says.

Not knowing exactly how the virus works and how it can be killed off creates a horrible uncertainty

BBC reader Mariana, Mexico City

Read more experiences

Send us your comments

The World Bank is providing Mexico with more than $200m in loans to help it deal with the outbreak.

Fear of the virus is expected to lead to many tourists cancelling their holidays and Mexican exports are already beginning to be affected.

Russia has banned imports of raw pork and pork products from Mexico and the US states of California, Texas and Kansas until further notice as a precaution.

Dr Fukuda said on Sunday there was no proof that eating pork would lead to infection.

"Right now we have no evidence to suggest that people are getting exposed, or getting infected, from exposure to pork or to pigs, and so right now we have zero evidence to suspect that exposure to meat leads to infections," he said.

It seems the usual tin foil crowd are busy blogging up a storm over this and possible links to FEMA camps.

I would be interested to hear from anyone with any medical training, on the likelihood of this becoming serious.

Comments?

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To be perfectly honest I am quite worried about this, it's probably just because i'm in China at the moment and will be travelling around the world for the next year and thus will be far more exposed to this kind of shit than usual. I always said bird flu was a crock of shit but I don't have that same confidence about this.

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Up until a couple of years ago I wouldn't have been worried... then I got a sinus infection a couple of years ago which moved to the chest, and my boss was being a douche and made me work with a bunch of industrial solvents all weekend right when I was recovering... ended up in bed for 2 weeks with chemical pneumonia and what looked like serious lung damage, but they couldn't tell from the x-rays at the time because it was too close to being sick... and I can't afford to drop $3k on a CAT scan yet.

Anyway, point being, I'm fine most of the time, but if I get seriously sick with anything that ends up moving to my lungs, I'm floored for two weeks. One for the flu or whatever, the next for the opportunistic infection in my chest.

Up to over 100 deaths in Mexico now, and new cases in Spain, Canada, possible in Israel, Australia... etc. It still doesn't seem to be spreading terribly fast though. It has hit a lot of countries in a short time, but the infection rates don't seem to be going up anywhere but Mexico. On the other hand, who knows what the incubation period of this variety is. Standard for the flu is something like 1-5 days with a usual of 2, so until that time passes in all the countries the infected were brought to it's really hard to tell how widespread it is already.

Also noticed that the EU is recommending against non-essential air travel to anywhere in North America.

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Flu came from birds millions of years ago. Pigs are like humans so they can catch our flu and we can catch theirs. Unfortunately pigs can also catch bird flus. A pig can have a bird flu and a human flu, they mutate and join and then can get transfered to humans which then again transforms inside the human where it again mutates into a new virus.

When these strains enter large human populations they spread and continue to mutate. The larger the population and the more these strains cross mutate (and come in contact with different immune systems and conditions) the more chance we will come up against something that we have zero knowledge and control over. Another fear is that an avian strain and some of the drug resistant strains available infect the same pig, that's real trouble.

The Spansih flu started in Kansas (went dormant and then resurfaced in Europe, probably carried by troops involved in WW1 where it mutated and killed millions), there are connections with this outbreak and Kansas.

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WASHINGTON — The U.S. declared a public health emergency Sunday to deal with the emerging new swine flu, much like the government does to prepare for approaching hurricanes.

Officials reported 20 U.S. cases of swine flu in five states so far, with the latest in Ohio and New York. Unlike in Mexico where the same strain appears to be killing dozens of people, cases in the United State have been mild _ and U.S. health authorities can't yet explain why.

"As we continue to look for cases, we are going to see a broader spectrum of disease," predicted Dr. Richard Besser, acting chief of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "We're going to see more severe disease in this country."

At a White House news conference, Besser and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano sought to assure Americans that health officials are taking all appropriate steps to minimize the impact of the outbreak.

Top among those is declaring the public health emergency. As part of that, Napolitano said roughly 12 million doses of the drug Tamiflu will be moved from a federal stockpile to places where states can quickly get their share if they decide they need it. Priority will be given to the five states with known cases so far: California, Texas, New York, Ohio and Kansas.

Napolitano called the emergency declaration standard operating procedure _ one was declared recently for the inauguration and for flooding. She urged people to think of it as a "declaration of emergency preparedness."

"Really that's what we're doing right now. We're preparing in an environment where we really don't know ultimately what the size of seriousness of this outbreak is going to be."

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Updated, 1:38 p.m. | The authorities have confirmed 28 cases of swine flu of the more than 100 students sickened at a private high school in Queens, and have classified another 17 cases as probable instances of swine flu, but so far there is no sign of any wider influenza outbreak in New York City, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced on Monday.

“Many New Yorkers are understandably concerned and uncertain about what to do,” the mayor said at a City Hall news conference, flanked by top health and public safety officials.

The mayor said the city and Department of Health and Mental Hygiene had updated the nyc.gov Web site with information on swine flu and sent information home with more than a million public school students, along with providing notices to health care providers, school nurses, school custodians and school cafeteria staffs.

So far, the mayor said, there is only one reported cluster of swine flu, at St. Francis Preparatory School in Fresh Meadows, Queens, where the number of confirmed and likely cases is 45. “It just means that we have more data back confirming what we had suspected and talked about yesterday,” the mayor said.

He added, “Four to five days after seeing the first signs of the swine flu in Queens, we are still dealing with a single cluster of swine flu cases, all associated with this one school.”

The mayor added that six students with flulike symptoms, tested at a daycare center in the Bronx, also tested negative for swine flu. “This rules out this day care center as a flu cluster, and there are no other clusters evident in New York City,” he said.

After contacting every hospital intensive care unit in the city each of the last three days, the city has not detected any new cases of possible or suspected swine flu, the mayor said. “So far, we are not seeing a situation comparable to that being reported in Mexico,” he said.

The mayor acknowledged that there has been an increase in visits to emergency rooms, but said the increase is not a cause for concern. “Our preliminary information is that they have not seen severely ill people, but have seen some people that are worried about the flu,” he said.

He added, “For the general public, masks simply are not needed.” He said that the only people who should swear masks are those caring for or living with the sickened St. Francis students.

Asked about the European Union’s admonition against nonessential visits to the United States and Mexico, the mayor suggested that he disagreed, but avoided criticism of the European authorities. “We don’t think there is any reason not to travel and come to New York,” he said, adding, “They have to do what they think is right.”

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i need this to be my first post. but anyway i would like to say that these diseases are man made. IT TOOK MILLIONS OF YEARS FOR CANCER TO BECOME AS STRONG AS IT IS> AIDS TOO JUST SHORT OF 30-40 YEARS?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

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just saw on the news that there are confirmd cases in the UK now, thnkfully tho in scotland so miles from me - i'm not bothered yet, unless it really starts to spread but seems like it isnt a rapidily spreading infection

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I have relatives in Mexico City. They are all pretty shook on the whole thing, School has been suspended until May, though if things get worse, much longer. They're staying inside their house for the most part, only going out to get what is essential. They just had a 5.6 earthquake today too, so things are looking pretty grimey for them.

Today in class I couldn't help to think of this when my classmates sneezed, 3 times during that class.

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Yeah, problem with thermal scanners are that if you're in an airport sick enough that you've already got a higher temp, you'll have already passed it on to god knows how many other people who's body hasn't heated up yet and are not detected by the scanners. They need to deploy the scanners at the entrances of each airport to stop people from entering global transit hubs which are the main key to pandemics. But, that requires massive cooperation and spending that just won't happen.

Now, this story is filled with more awesome than any other that I have read before:

Lausanne, Switzerland - A container for transporting swine flu virus samples exploded on a Swiss train, authorities said Tuesday, but stressed that there was no danger to the public. The container, which was filled with dry ice and carried samples of the H1N1 swine flu virus, was destined for Switzerland's national influenza centre in Geneva, exploded Monday night on board of a train.

A laboratory employee had picked up the samples in Zurich to transport them by train to Geneva, but the package exploded near Fribourg and Lausanne, after melting dry ice, which had been wrongly places, caused a build-up of pressure.

Two people suffered slight injuries, police confirmed, but authorities stressed there was no danger for the public as the virus was not the mutated strain which is suspected to have caused up to 149 deaths in Mexico.

The train was halted for several hours and the 61 passengers on board the affected carriage monitored until an infection could be completely ruled out, police said.

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i need this to be my first post. but anyway i would like to say that these diseases are man made. IT TOOK MILLIONS OF YEARS FOR CANCER TO BECOME AS STRONG AS IT IS> AIDS TOO JUST SHORT OF 30-40 YEARS?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

I need this to be my first response to you. but anyway I would like to say that you're an imbecile. Go read about the flu, it was passed on from birds millions of years ago. Try reading a little before you make any more earth shattering revelations...., concerning anything!

PS, anyone who ever thought bird flu was a crock of shit needs to reconsider. It was and still is a real threat, it's pretty much what we're facing now but it isn't the H5N1 strain that we've been focusing on over the past few years, this is H1N1 (which signifies a particular external protein type, not the actual RNA).

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Dr Michael J. Selgelid, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, and Deputy Director, National Centre for Biosecurity at the ANU, writes:

No one should be all that surprised by the recent emergence and spread of the Swine Flu virus from Mexico that looks likely to have pandemic potential. Experts have for years been saying that a flu pandemic was inevitable -- and that it was just a matter of when, not if, the next major flu pandemic would strike.

Flu pandemics come in cycles -- and we have long been overdue for one. Though public attention has for years been focused on avian influenza (H5N1) as the likely candidate for the next pandemic strain of flu, experts have consistently been warning that it was not unlikely that the next pandemic would arise from a different strain of influenza altogether. Pig flu may have suddenly stolen the show from bird flu-- but this was not to be unexpected.

Fears about flu pandemics are commonly associated with the great Spanish Flu pandemic, which killed somewhere between 20 and 100 million people worldwide in 1918-19. The Spanish Flu killed more people in a single year than any other disease in history -- and more Americans than were killed in battle during World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War combined.

On the one hand, influenza can be quite an ordinary disease -- we all suffer from the flu every now and then. Pandemic flu is somewhat different. Pandemics are worldwide epidemics that periodically occur because the influenza virus is changing constantly as a result of the fact that it is particularly prone to genetic mutation. When an animal -- usually bird or pig -- version of the virus mutates into a form that makes it transmissible between humans, the resulting virus is more dangerous. We have less immunity against it because we have never been exposed to it -- or its nearest flu relatives -- before.

On the other hand, even pandemic flu is not plague. One of the biggest dangers associated with pandemic flu is that the media, the public, and policy makers will over-react to it. New infectious diseases often lead to unnecessary hysteria -- and hasty, irrational, and overly-draconian policy responses.

Though estimates range widely, the 1918 flu is commonly thought to have killed 40 million people. That would be roughly (only) 2 percent of the population at the time. It is true that many of these people were young and healthy -- but many were also old or already sick with other illnesses.

The bottom line is that even if the next flu pandemic is as deadly as the worst flu pandemic in history -- which is unlikely based on statistical probabilities -- a large proportion of people will become infected, but only a small proportion of the population will die or suffer permanent harm.

At the end of the day, even pandemic flu is still just flu. Influenza is simply not the kind of disease that wipes out populations -- as the Black Death eliminated one third of the European population between 1347 and 1350.

When it comes to flu, therefore, perhaps the only thing to panic about is panic itself. And panic should not arise if policy makers and public health officials do a good job communicating to the public about the nature of the disease and the measures that can be taken to reduce chances of infection -- and if they avoid unnecessarily resorting to draconian public health responses such as isolation and quarantine enforced by the military or other security forces.

We should recall that measures like these spurred riots in China during the SARS crisis of 2003. There may be a place for coercive public health measures such as isolation and quarantine, but once a flu pandemic has taken root and is spreading freely across the global population -- as the current Swine Flu seems to be doing -- it may already be too late to contain it via measures like these. Such measures are, in any case, notoriously lacking in evidence regarding their effectiveness.

Also lacking in evidence is the effectiveness of masks as a means of infection control. It is a tragedy that we don’t know more about whether or not mask-wearing provides substantial protection against flu. Presumably the only reason we do not know more about this is that no one has bothered to spend the money required to study it properly.

Too much medical research is left in the hands of profit-driven pharmaceutical companies that aim to develop patentable products that they can sell for lots of money. We need additional support for research on other (low-tech) kinds of interventions -- like mask-wearing -- that don’t promise much in the way of return-on-investment for private industry.

I suppose this means that governments should be directly funding more research like this. Now would be a good time to start -- opportunity knocks.

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Those of you who are dead-set on framing this as some sort of NWO lab-created virus intended for global depopulation will undoubtedly dismiss this as propaganda, smokescreen, or cover-up, but the potential for the origins of this deadly new flu strain being factory farms is quite substantial. Many have long been warning about the dangerous conditions of factory farming, and how, when combined with the now globalized movement of people and goods, we are presented with an unprecedented situation for outbreak and pandemic. Had such global movement of people and goods been present during the 1918 outbreak, the casualties would undoubtedly been much higher.